Evolution vs Intelligent design/creationism

[blü 2]

There, I believe they are referring to 'scientists' who have physically died and are working through their spirit forms communicating telepathically through mediums.

It seems clear from their grasp of physics that all those scientists died back in Edwardian times.

 

[George-ananda]

It seems clear from their grasp of physics that all those scientists died back in Edwardian times.

What is their fundamental error?

 

[DavidFirth]

What I will entertain or not entertain is irrelevant to the data, that is the point of science.
You won't even hear of the possibility ... sounds like bias to me, big time!
No, that's just the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. That's why I pick something clear, regrowth of an amputated limb. Many who were believers undoubtedly prayed for it, none ever received it. Pretty clear, no bias there.

So you simply conclude that prayer isn't any good at all yet you are perfectly willing to accept crap like abiogenesis, macroevolution and the Big Bang with no actual positively confirming test results. Yep, you're a chip off the old Harvard block.

 

[DavidFirth]

Right......just say that up front and be done with it. No need to disparage people you know nothing about.

Well, that's why I always tell you up front to prove what you say else I will in no wise believe you.

 

[Skwim]

So you simply conclude that prayer isn't any good at all yet you are perfectly willing to accept crap like angiogenesis, macroevolution and the Big Bang with no actual positively confirming test results. Yep, you're a chip off the old Harvard block.

Doesn't take a 7th grader to see the difference.

EVIDENCE FOR..........................................NO EVIDENCE FOR

Abiogenesis................................................... Dragons
Macroevolution..............................................Angels
Big Bang..........................................................Efficacy of prayer

.​

 

[blü 2]

What is their fundamental error?

The report I was quoting (from the site you linked) was full of errors about physics, as outlined in my penultimate post (#178).

 

[DavidFirth]

Doesn't take a 7th grader to see the difference.

EVIDENCE FOR..........................................NO EVIDENCE FOR

Abiogenesis................................................... Dragons
Macroevolution..............................................Angels
Big Bang..........................................................Efficacy of prayer

.​

That's purely subjective. The "evidence" can be interpreted any which way you choose to interpret it.

 

[Skwim]

That's purely subjective. The "evidence" can be interpreted any which way you choose to interpret it.

Not that I agree, but outside of evidence what criterion do you suggest we use to determine truth?

.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

So you simply conclude that prayer isn't any good at all yet you are perfectly willing to accept crap like abiogenesis, macroevolution and the Big Bang with no actual positively confirming test results. Yep, you're a chip off the old Harvard block.

No one is saying that the power of prayer has no positive purpose, or is any good at all. Prayer has many positive psychological, social, and emotional benefits. Hope, security, belonging, and a sense of purpose are all necessary in maintaining a healthy human condition. Although, one experiment demonstrated that when some patients realized that people had started praying for him, their overall emotional state took a turn for the worst. Hence the double-blind experiments. Science does not, and cannot, absolutely and positively prove anything, It can only provide the best possible explanation of NATURAL phenomenon. Science cannot explain UNNATURAL phenomenon, because it lacks unnatural tools and unnatural evidence. Even if it could, it would only mean that the UNNATURAL phenomenon would now become a NATURAL phenomenon. Don

 

[blü 2]

That's purely subjective.

No, it's not. The evidence for evolution, a round earth, geocentry, a nearly 14 bn year old universe, no flood, germ theory, is all objective, all examinable, all available to be looked at and revisited.

This is where you need that clear concept of true and false. Truth means conformity with reality. The evidence makes true statements since the evidence is part of reality.

The "evidence" can be interpreted any which way you choose to interpret it.

Not under scientific method. There you're obliged to reason clearly and honestly from the evidence, express your hypotheses in falsifiable form, test your predictions, report your conclusions and open them to the scrutiny and debate of your peers, and reply clearly and specifically to criticisms.

The idea of ruling something out because the bible disagrees with it is baseless and arbitrary. Whatever you make of the religious message of the bible (and it has its share of poetry and wisdom sayings), its science, like much of its morality, is Bronze Age, its history is a mix of fact, tale and spin, and most of its rules are no longer relevant. If you're concerned to know what's true in reality, then as ai said, you should address your mind to what 'true' means.

Of course, if you're not interested to know what's true in reality, forget I spoke.

 

[Sapiens]

So you simply conclude that prayer isn't any good at all yet you are perfectly willing to accept crap like abiogenesis, macroevolution and the Big Bang with no actual positively confirming test results. Yep, you're a chip off the old Harvard block.

Hardly, remember, I am a skeptic, I accept nothing. The cited issues are unconnected by anything except for biblical misplaced opposition from presuppositional theists. Abiogenesis, macroevolution and the Big Bang each have separate and distinct evidence bases, you can debate them all, separately, but you lump them together because you make the same logical error considering each of them: you engage in the logical fallacy of argument from ignorance.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

On the first link on your link I find:

Some of the physicists working in this area are discovering no conflict at all between physics and belief in the paranormal and the afterlife. They are showing that the phenomena we now call “paranormal” are normal and consistent with the laws of science at the subatomic level.
​

So where do these 'physicists' publish their findings? Not in any reputable journals of physics that I'm aware of.

We now know that atoms are 99.999999999% empty space.
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We know no such thing. The statement is meaningless.

And, thanks to 'quantum physics', we now know that subatomic particles- electrons, protons and neutrons - are not solid either. They are made up of energy. So the world we think of as being solid is in fact empty space.
​

There is no space without energy in it. Space with energy in it is not empty.

This means that there is plenty of room for other worlds, other dimensions, to take up the same space our own world but at a different frequency.
​

What 'other worlds'? What 'other dimensions'? What scientific theory is implied in the reference to 'at a different frequency'? This sounds like the nonsense that was fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s and produced a lot of bad science fiction.

Our senses and our instruments are only able to perceive a small range of vibrations between two fixed points, namely between 34,000 and 64,000 waves to the inch, or from 400 to 750 billion waves to the second. That is the section which makes up to us the physical world.
​

750 bn is 7.5 e+11. Our instruments can and do detect frequencies up to at least e+15 cycles / sec (photons in the γ-ray range), and I dare say a lot more.

But the physical world is only a very limited section of vibrations compared with all the other vibrations in the universe.
​

That's a falsifiable statement. What evidence (of scientific standard) supports it?

Scientists working in the Spirit world (which they call the Etheric world) tell us that their world is just as solid as our world but on a different frequency- just above what our senses can perceive.
​

I'm trying to think how to be polite about that last sentence. Perhaps I'll just ask whether when they say 'scientist' they intend to denote a trained investigator who proceeds by scientific method. And if not, why do they use the word 'scientist'?

I'm confused. Are you suggesting that the atom IS NOT 99.99999996% space? Because of the quantum rules, electrons can only inhabit certain valence shells. There is nothing in-between. You can only turn your light switch on or off. There is no in-between choice. Energy is a PROPERTY THAT MUST DO WORK OR BE TRANSFORMED TO EXIST. Energy cannot create itself. I can create the matter that uses the energy, which is also a property of matter. Energy is not a "thingy" that is spread throughout space, although its properties occupy all of space. We are talking about 2 dimensional space itself, and no one with a few active brain cells working, thinks that space is completely empty. Because of the uncertainty principle, dark energy, virtual particles, and the quantum fields, there is no such thing as completely empty space. So yes, an atom is composed overwhelmingly of space. And yes, empty space is not really empty. in the sense that virtual particles are not really particles.

Since you have already made up your mind that the math or any other inductive evidence supporting multi-dimensions, alternate realities, or the multiverse is just science fiction and nonsense, then maybe you have some idea why the force of gravity is over 40 orders of magnitude weaker that the other 3 fundamental forces? The rest of this post is just opinionated unsupported truth claims, and biased editorials. don

 

[sayak83]

So you simply conclude that prayer isn't any good at all yet you are perfectly willing to accept crap like abiogenesis, macroevolution and the Big Bang with no actual positively confirming test results. Yep, you're a chip off the old Harvard block.

Is being a chip of the Harvard block supposed to be a slur?

 

[blü 2]

I'm confused. Are you suggesting that the atom IS NOT 99.99999996% space?

I'm saying that there's no such thing as empty space; that the energy of the vacuum has no holes or gaps. This is relevant to the claim I was quoting.

you have already made up your mind that the math or any other inductive evidence supporting multi-dimensions

The existence of more dimensions than four is hypothesis unsupported by evidence. I don't rule it out but I have no reason to rule it in. More relevantly, the text I was quoting didn't claim extra dimensions. It referred to other 'frequencies'.

alternate realities

What, for purposes of physics, is an 'alternate reality'?

the multiverse

Same response as for other dimensions. And again not mentioned in the text I was quoting.

, then maybe you have some idea why the force of gravity is over 40 orders of magnitude weaker that the other 3 fundamental forces?

I'm familiar with the hypothesis that gravity affects 'other' dimensions. Same response again.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

Since no one has claimed that space is empty, what was the point of your straw man? Are you saying that there is no such thing as space? If so, what exactly is it that is expanding in the Universe? Are you simply one of those people that science must prove to them, that all its claims are beyond ANY doubts at all? Are you simply one of those people that have no scientific alternative ideas of their own to present? Do you at least understand any of the math/physics that allows for extra dimensions and the multiverse? Which was started in the 70's not the 20's and 30's. You are simply a flea on the back of an elephant, from a scientific perspective. Your approval or understanding is totally irrelevant, and totally unnecessary. I sincerely hope that this is not the sum total of your contribution to science or in its understanding.

What is your research background in the study of Quantum Vacuum, Quantum Entanglement, Special Relativity, or any aspect of Quantum Mechanics? What is your general understanding of the Standard Model, or its significance? What is the relevance of the hypothesis of the nature of the Graviton and the Gravity Field, and their interaction with the 4 Quantum Fields? Why are extra dimensions allowed in the String Theory? Remember, it is not the math that is in question, or does that even matter to you? Don

 

[Jose Fly]

Well, that's why I always tell you up front to prove what you say else I will in no wise believe you.

Except in this case, there was only one result you were ever going to accept, regardless of who conducted the tests or what methods they used.

 

[ArtieE]

Hawking puts it at about infinity to one

Link?

- the number of multiverses

The number of multiverses? How many multiverses do you think there are when one multiverse contains all that exists? Confronting the Multiverse: What 'Infinite Universes' Would Mean

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Link?The number of multiverses? How many multiverses do you think there are when one multiverse contains all that exists? Confronting the Multiverse: What 'Infinite Universes' Would Mean

you answered your own questions, how many totally random universes would be required to produce this one?

Confronting the Multiverse: What 'Infinite Universes' Would Mean.

The same number of random software code examples would be required to write this one accidentally.. there are better explanations for both!

 

[ArtieE]

you answered your own questions, how many totally random universes would be required to produce this one?

Confronting the Multiverse: What 'Infinite Universes' Would Mean.

The same number of random software code examples would be required to write this one accidentally.. there are better explanations for both!

"The universe we live in may not be the only one out there. In fact, our universe could be just one of an infinite number of universes making up a "multiverse." 5 Reasons We May Live in a Multiverse
If there's an infinite number of universes what are the chances one of them is like this one? Pretty good...

 

[stevevw]

So as a believer in evolution I would like to hear the side of creationism or intelligent design. Why do you believe that they are true. I know that evolution hasnt been proven, but there is strong evidence to point in that direction. Let me know what you think.

I think the words "strong evidence that points in that direction" is telling. It is a bit like Richard Dawkins words, "life has the appearence of design" but it is not". This seems to be the crux of the matter. Life has some pretty amazing qualities and evolution has to come up with some pretty amazing explanations to account for it. Neo-Dawinism has been credited with the ability to account for life especially natural selection which has been attributed with powerful creative abilities because more and more we are seeing incredible capabilities in life so evolution has to match that. The problem is people can come up with simple examples which as you say "point to something greater" but cannot support that greater ability with any detail or scientific verification. Natural selection happens but it does not happen as much or as great as has been made out.

In recent times new discoveries and understanding are showing how life emerged and changes is much more complex than made out by the Neo-Darwinian theory. There are other influences that may have been involved which are said to be more responsible in changing life. Neo-Dawiniam takes a very blinkered view of life. Other areas such as developmental biology, epigentics, social sciences and genomics give insight into how life can change. Living things can work together and with the environment to share genetic info. Creatures can change their environments which and change ecosystems. Insights from developmental evolution show that life has common control genes and these may have been around from the beginning to account for the evolution of new genes that can be switched on and off to produce new features. Living things are connected to their environments and can activate the needed changes to help them adapt rather than have to always be subjected to undirected adaptations to help them survive.